Vinesh Phogat vs Wrestling Federation of India has taken a fresh turn after the sports federation moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court’s order permitting the wrestler to participate in the selection trials for the 2026 Asian Games. WFI’s move escalates the federation’s legal battle with the star wrestler, who is attempting a comeback after her maternity break.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe is scheduled to hear the federation’s plea on Friday. Earlier, on May 22, a division bench of the Delhi High Court had allowed Phogat to compete in the upcoming Asian Games trials, observing that the WFI’s selection policy was exclusionary and lacked the discretion to accommodate an iconic athlete returning from maternity leave.
The high court had also directed that the trials, scheduled to be held on May 30 and 31, be video-recorded. It further ordered that independent observers from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) remain present during the process.
The Sanjay Singh-led WFI had earlier declared Phogat ineligible for the trials after revising its selection criteria to state that only reigning national champions from the previous season could participate. The move came ahead of Phogat’s return to competitive wrestling following her maternity break.
In its order, the Delhi High Court came down heavily on the federation, terming its actions against Phogat “vindictive” and “retrograde”.
The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, observed that Phogat was unable to satisfy the WFI’s “exclusionary” policy only because she had taken a maternity break. The court said motherhood could not become a reason to marginalise female athletes.
“It cannot be denied that the journey of a female athlete through pregnancy and the post-partum period is one that is marked by extraordinary physical challenges, the magnitude of which is often insufficiently acknowledged within institutional sporting frameworks,” the court observed.
The bench also questioned the Sports Ministry and the central government for not intervening in the matter despite the nature of the federation’s actions.
The court additionally took exception to a show-cause notice issued by the WFI to Phogat, which reportedly described her Paris Olympics disqualification for being overweight as a “national shame”. The bench said the remarks reflected mala fide intent and should have been avoided.
The verdict had marked significant relief for Phogat, who has remained at the centre of Indian wrestling’s turbulence in recent years, from leading protests against former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh to battling administrative and legal disputes over her return to competition.
With the WFI now moving the Supreme Court, the dispute has entered another phase ahead of the Asian Games trials later this week.
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